Thoughts on Education Policy

Tuesday, April 11, 2017

The New York State legislatures agreed on the final 2018 state budget over the weekend, which includes a new "free tuition" program dubbed the "Excelsior Scholarship" for New York State students attending public colleges and universities in-state.

Reactions have poured in from all over the state and country, but most are based on a lack of understanding of what the bill actually entails. No, the bill does not mean all students are going to get free or even debt-free college next year. By my calculations, what it actually means is that roughly 15% of students will have their costs reduced by roughly 15% of the actual annual price of college.

While the "free tuition" headline flashing in bright lights is incredibly misleading, the official slogan on the state information page is actually quite accurate: "making college tuition-free for middle class New Yorkers".

The Basics
In case you're unaware, here are the basics of what the program entails:
-New York resident students from families making under $100,000 (2017), $110K (2018), and eventually $125K (starting in 2019) will not have to pay tuition at in-state public colleges and universities.
-These students are required to earn 30 credits per year and maintain eligibility to graduate (e.g., meet program minimum GPA's).
-In exchange for tuition assistance, students will be required to remain in NYS for as many years as they received that assistance (typically two or four years). If they move out-of-state, the scholarship assistance they received converts into a loan.

The program is novel in that it covers both community colleges and four-year schools, taking a step beyond what programs in Tennessee and Oregon have done (both cover only community colleges). But it does not go nearly as far as most people reading the headlines assume. Why? Three main reasons:

1.) It doesn't do much to help students from low-income families. Most students from families earning under $80K/year already pay no tuition and most students from families earning under $50K pay no tuition or fees because of TAP and Pell grants and other financial assistance.

2.) It doesn't do anything to help students from upper-income families. There's no plan to help students from families that earn over $125K, which the state indicates constitute the top 24% of earners with college-age students. With most of the bottom half (see footnote 1) and top quarter of families (by income) excluded, that leaves mostly the third quartile eligible for the scholarship.

3.) While some students will indeed pay zero for tuition next year instead of up to $6,770, the total cost of attendance at state university centers is around four times that figure. At the University at Buffalo (aka SUNY-Buffalo for out-of-staters or just "UB" for locals) where I work, for example, the total cost of attendance is pegged at $26,230 for students not living at home -- meaning that tuition comprises 25.8% of the total cost of attendance.

Why is it really "15 for 15"?
There are lot of assumptions to be made here and I don't have enough information to do all of the math precisely, but "15 for 15" is both catchy and seems like a reasonable estimate. Here's how I arrived at this:

1.) Nancy Zimpher, the SUNY Chancellor, has testified that SUNY expects about 80,000 students to enroll in the program plus 3-5K CUNY students, bringing the total to maybe 85K students. There appear to be about 500,000 potentially eligible students (see footnote 2), meaning roughly 17% would participate. (corrected, 4/13/17)

2.) Expenditures for the program have been estimated at $163 million per year. Divided by ~85K students, that means the average award would be around $2,000.

3.) $2,000 is only ~7% of the total cost of attendance at the university centers, but very few students actually pay the full cost of attendance. At UB, for example, the average annual cost for in-state students is $16,293. An award of $2,000 would reduce this cost by ~13%. This would vary widely by campus, of course (see footnote 3).

I rounded both numbers to 15% both because I like round numbers and because there's a high degree of uncertainty in each. Both could easily be 10% or 20%.

Effects on Student Debt
Here's the good news, though. While 15% of students receiving a 15% discount off the price they pay doesn't sound like a whole heck of a lot, it could actually put a much larger dent in student debt in three different ways:

1.) The average student who takes out loans and graduates from UB, for example, graduates with $19,900 in debt in federal loans. If a student receives $8,000 in additional aid over four years, that total could be reduced by about 40% to ~12K (see footnote 4).

2.) The requirement that students take 30 credits per year and graduate in four years could also mean that more students will finish faster and take out less debt than they would in five or six years (though it could also backfire and result in more students dropping out in frustration when they fail to accrue 30 credits . . . this is TBD).

3.) For students with lower loan amounts, the award could nudge them toward taking out zero loans. Imagine, for example, that you're taking out $3,000 each year in loans and planning to graduate with $12K in debt, but now receive an additional $2,000 discount. Maybe the student will now be so close to debt-free graduation that (s)he will look a little harder for ways to chip in that last $1,000 (maybe their family passes on a vacation or the student spends some summer earnings on their college bill instead of a larger apartment or eats in the dining hall more often and take-out less often). (Of course, there's also the possibility that the student would think $4K was such a small amount that they'd feel comfortable taking out more loans to cover living expenses . . . this is also TBD).

Looking Forward
We'll know more in the coming years about program enrollment, costs, reduction in costs of college, and potential reduction in student debt.

By my calculation, most students won't benefit at all from the program and the few who do mostly won't benefit all that much. For those reasons, we might not expect massive enrollment shifts. But decisions often aren't made in a calculated fashion. There's widespread misunderstanding of student debt already out there, for example (which hasn't increased as much and doesn't affect as many students as most seem to think), so "free tuition" might sound very enticing to those panicking about potential debt issues even (and maybe especially) if they're overestimating their future debt burden.

If we've learned anything from current events the past year, it's that people often don't make decisions for the reasons they say (or think) they do. Even though the program shouldn't save very many families very much money, it's not entirely unlikely that it nonetheless drives a disproportionate increase in applications and enrollment to NYS public colleges and universities.

I also wonder to what extent schools and private funders will react in order to game the system. Since the program is "last dollar" and pays for only tuition that's not covered by other sources, I wonder whether schools and scholarship programs will try to provide grants designated for fees, room, board, books, etc. instead of tuition. If institutions and foundations successfully did this, they could potentially raise the average award significantly (though funding rules would also likely be changed if the scholarship budget was shot).

Lastly, I wonder whether the residency requirement will stick around. I see why it was politically attractive to wary legislators (if the state is going to spend money on students, we might as well make sure they benefit the state), but it could be administratively onerous to track and monitor all these students and convert benefits to loans when necessary and could significantly dampen the program's impact if students shy away from signing up in order to avoid committing to remaining in-state after graduation.

All in all, I don't expect the program to make the type of impact many believe it will. But it should be an interesting experiment. And a small step toward debt-free college.

Footnote 1: At SUNY schools, 58% of resident students receive a TAP award, and 39% receive the maximum amount ($5,165). I'd be willing to bet that virtually all of those 39% are paying zero tuition after we include other sources of financial aid. I'll guess that's true for about half of the other students receiving partial TAP funding, meaning that around 50% of students aren't paying any tuition currently. This may be a conservative estimate.

Footnote 2: I'm unsure exactly who will be eligible for the scholarship, but here's how I arrived at a ballpark of 500K.-SUNY reports enrollment of ~400K undergraduate students in their most recent report, which isn't broken down by full-time vs. part-time, age, year in school, etc.-CUNY reports enrollment of ~245K undergraduate students on their website, which is broken down into ~161K full-time and ~84K part-time.-Slightly under 2/3 of CUNY students are full-time, and I'm guessing that number is a bit higher for SUNY. If we assume it's about 75%, that gives ~300K full-time SUNY students + ~161K full-time CUNY students, that gives us ~461K total full-time students. I'm guessing the vast majority of these students will be eligible but a much smaller portion of part-time students will be, so I'm rounding up to 500K. This could be a bit high if fewer students are eligible than I think, but could be conservative if more than 80% of undergraduate students are eligible or if enrollment patterns change in response to the incentive. For example, more students might enroll in public schools or enroll full-time. In which case, the actual number could be closer to 600K or even 700K.

Footnote 3: One glaring exception here is that the average annual cost of attendance is much lower at community colleges (Niagara County Community College is $6,154, for example). A $2,000 award here would pay for roughly one-third the costs of attendance. I'm assuming awards will be smaller at community colleges, though, both because tuition is less ($4,370 instead of $6,470 in 2016-17) and because student bodies at community colleges come from lower-income families and more will already eligible for Pell and TAP grants. Students living at home would also have a higher portion of their costs covered (at UB, total costs for commuter students are pegged at $15,322 next year, which means that tuition ($6,770) comprises 44.2% of their costs). Even as community college and commuter students stand to cover more than 15% of net costs, though, resident students may often cover much less. Most of the scholarship recipients will hail from families earning between $75K and $110K, and students from that bracket paid an average of $20,278 at UB according to the College Scorecard -- meaning a $2,000 scholarship would cover less than 10% of costs for these students.

Footnote 4: I don't know what the average loan level of scholarship recipient students will be, but I'm guessing it should be near the average for the school since the lowest- and highest-income students won't receive the scholarship. For UB, 47% of graduates have federal loans but I'm guessing a somewhat higher percentage have any type of loans (possibly not much higher, since College Navigator reports only 7% receive other loans). Of course, this also means that when we include all loans that the average will be higher than the ~$20K reported and an $8K reduction would make less than a 40% dent in loans owed.4/11/17: Corrected to use 2017-18 figures for both tuition and cost of attendance for calculations rather than 2016-17.4/13/17: Corrected to amend the original estimate of 80K students to include an additional 3-5K CUNY students who weren't included in the SUNY estimate. This raises my estimate of potentially eligible students who will actually receive monies from 16% to 17%.

Tuesday, January 31, 2017

If you haven't yet, you should read this letter from hundreds of educational researchers opposing Betsy DeVos's nomination as Secretary of Education.

I strongly believe that Professors should largely refrain from political advocacy because I believe it interferes with our ability to teach -- I want my students to make up their own mind about policy based on research evidence without knowing whether I have a personal preference or what it is.

I signed (and played an exceedingly small role in writing) the letter, though, because I don't think this is truly a matter of politics or policy. I don't oppose Betsy DeVos on ideological grounds. Our new President is going to nominate somebody with a similar ideology regardless of whether she's approved anyway. I signed the letter largely because she's proven that she's not qualified. Her knowledge (or lack thereof) of federal education policy in her Senate hearing was, frankly, embarrassing.

We will never agree on ideology, but we should all agree that we want the best and brightest leading our schools. The current administration can find many better options than Betsy DeVos.

Tuesday, March 18, 2014

For those of you outside academia, "face validity" is a fancy term academics use that simply means that something makes sense upon first glance (or "on face"). US News and World Report released their latest grad school rankings last week, and one thing I notice is the lack of face validity.

First, I should note that I'm a Vanderbilt alum and Vanderbilt dropped to #2 in the education school rankings after ranking #1 for five consecutive years. I hesitated to write this post lest anybody think it's simply sour grapes. Or maybe an attempt to draw attention to the fact that Vanderbilt dropped in the rankings as soon as I left . . .

In all seriousness, I really don't care all that much where Vanderbilt ranks. I don't even know what it actually means to be the top-ranked school of education. What matters most? Outcomes of students? Research of faculty? Selectivity? The current rankings measure the latter two but not the first (my biggest criticism of them would be that they make virtually no attempt to measure the education students actually receive). We could construct the rankings 100 different ways that would all make some amount of sense, so it's a bit ridiculous that the USNWR rankings draw so much attention (and yet, here I am, helping them draw even more attention).

Despite the fact that I claim I have no idea what it means to be the top-ranked school of education, if pressed I'd have to posit that the top four, in some order, are Vanderbilt (Peabody), Columbia (Teacher's College), Stanford, and Harvard. I think those four have the most history and prestige, but I could be wrong. By one measure, they have the most recognizable scholars (Stanford has 21; Harvard 19; Columbia 12; and Vanderbilt 11 of the 200 scholars ranked) -- so I don't think I'm totally off-base here. So it's interesting to me that those schools rank second, third, fourth, and eighth.

Another measure would be to look at which schools have the top-ranked programs. USNWR ranks the top 20 or so programs in 10 different fields, though they do so solely based on nominations by Deans. I'd consider these rankings "face validity" because they're simply asking knowledgeable people what looks like it would make sense to them rather than doing any sort of comprehensive multivariate analysis. By clicking on each school's profile, one can see how many programs that school has that made the cut. Below are the top 25 ranked schools of education and the number of fields in which they were ranked:

-There looks to be only a mild correlation between a school's overall rank and the number of top programs it has.

-A number of schools have quite a few top-ranked programs but are outside the top 10 -- Michigan State, Ohio State, Virginia, and Indiana are particularly notable.

-Meanwhile, Northwestern and Johns Hopkins have exactly zero top-ranked programs and yet rank above all of those programs.

-Yes, you read that right: Johns Hopkins -- the new #1 School of Education -- has exactly zero programs ranked among the top 20 or so in the country. Now, I freely admit that I have absolutely no idea whether or not Johns Hopkins has the best faculty, students, research, or anything else we try to measure, but that's pretty striking.

So, something doesn't make sense here. How could Deans perceive that schools have a slew or dearth of top programs while the overall rankings indicate that the school as a whole is actually merely really good or the cream of the crop?

One possibility is that the Deans' perceptions are wrong and that the data collected by USNWR are a better indicator of quality. Another possibility is the opposite -- that the rankings are a sham and that we should listen to the Deans. A third possibility is that the program rankings are misleading in some way (e.g. some fields are more important than others, important fields are missed, the narrow margins are insignificant, or that a few top-5 programs is better than a bunch of top-20 programs).

If it's number one or two then I'd argue that either the overall rankings or the program rankings are lacking in face validity. In reality, it's probably some mixture of all of the above. But if memory serves, I believe that Texas, Oregon, and Johns Hopkins have been second one year and 10th or lower another year just in the past five years. It's possible that school quality changes that fast, but it seems rather unlikely.

Another way of looking at the rankings would be to look at programs that rank at the very top of their fields. If we look at the number of programs that rank in the top 10/top 5/#1 in their field, we get a different picture for each one and from above:

When we look at this way, we notice that four schools ranked in the top 10 didn't have a single program ranked in the top five in its field (#1 Johns Hopkins, #5 Penn, #7 Washington, and #10 Texas).

Another thing you may notice is that there are only eight #1 rankings in 10 fields. That's because the schools ranked first in student counseling and personnel services (Maryland) and technical/vocation education (Penn State) didn't make the top 25. Which may confirm my earlier hypothesis that some fields are viewed as more important than others. Or not. If we look at the number of programs ranked among the best in their field or the top 10/5/#1 in their field, we find a few schools outside the top top 25 that dwarf most of the top 25 schools:

All of which leads to a whole lot of confusion. I'm not really sure what the rankings are measuring to begin with, but it sure seems odd that their specialty rankings would be so misaligned with their comprehensive rankings. I'd bet that a lot of the Deans polled for the specialty rankings (and academics who think like they do) probably think the overall rankings are lacking in face validity.

Thursday, March 13, 2014

Today I continue the series examining the ways in which poverty influences academic performance. Part 1 explored the achievement gap and some trends and causes and future parts will discuss social factors and environmental conditions experienced by families living in poverty that may also impact academic performance. In other words, what, exactly, is it about living in poverty that results in dramatically lower achievement and attainment?

Before we can answer that, we need to first understand why poverty would matter. Below, I briefly discuss some theory and literature that points us toward some possibilities.

Neighborhood Effects
Though a wide array of social conditions influence children’s academic performance, researchers and policymakers have focused more on the links between housing and neighborhoods and educational outcomes; from the Gautreaux decision to the MTO experiment and beyond. The results of this strand of policy and research have run a wide gamut. A recent review of the literature [1] concludes that:

Housing programs have successfully helped poor parents move to safer and less disadvantaged communities and, in some cases, less segregated neighborhoods . . . Despite the ability for some of these programs to bring about context changes, it appears much more difficult to improve the educational outcomes of children. Early Gautreaux results suggested large benefits for children moving to the suburbs, but . . . more recent MTO research concludes that neighborhood change is not enough to substantially improve schooling quality or educational outcomes (p. 478).

In short, while there may be sufficient reason to believe that housing policy can positively and significantly impact the academic performance of some of the poorest Americans, there is as of yet no conclusive evidence that we know how to do this on a consistent basis.

One reason behind the contradicting findings may be the lack of a clear consensus on a theoretical framework outlining the relationships between potential levers of housing policy and academic performance. In their introduction to the Neighborhood Poverty series, Gephart and Brooks-Gunn [2] write that

Multiple theoretical perspectives, fragmented by discipline and often by method, provide partial, potentially complementary (but sometimes conflicting) guidance about the characteristics of neighborhoods that may affect the development of children, youth, and families, and about the mechanisms through which such characteristics affect families and individuals. (p. xvii)

Although the field has come a long way in the 17 years since, the problem they identify has never been fully resolved.
Why would these policies have led to changes in children’s educational performance? While the theory supporting such a relationship has been well-developed in some areas, it remains highly fragmented – particularly across different disciplines. In other words, while theoretical models regarding parts of the story abound, we do not yet have an all-encompassing theoretical framework. Jencks and Mayer [3] divide theories relating neighborhoods to child development into three groups: epidemic models, collective socialization models, and institutional models.

Epidemic models
Epidemic models theorize that neighborhood characteristics spread much like disease spreads – from person to person. For example, one person decides to use drugs, then another, then another, and so forth (or, perhaps, read Shakespeare). In this way, peer norms are the main driver of individual behavior; those raised in neighborhoods where going to college is the norm are more likely to attend college, and those raised in neighborhoods where dropping out of high school is the norm are more likely to drop out.

Collective socialization models
Collective socialization models hold that values are derived from adults who live in the neighborhood. Adults both serve as examples to which children should aspire and enforce rules within the neighborhood. These models would theorize that people who grow up in neighborhoods where drug dealers are idolized would be more likely to deal drugs when they come of age while those who grow up in neighborhoods full of shopkeepers would be more likely to open their own store and people who grow up around college graduates would be more likely to attend college themselves.

Institutional Models
Institutional models underline the importance of adults from outside of the neighborhood; particularly those in positions of authority (teachers, police, etc.). Theories under this umbrella posit that children from poorer neighborhoods interact with different outside authority figures and/or are treated differently by outside authority figures. Children treated with more respect and concern by these authority figures would then stand a better chance of graduating from high school or avoiding jail.

Discussion
Theories under all these umbrellas overlap with one another and often predict similar outcomes (for example, that students in poorer neighborhoods will be less likely to graduate). Both because of that fact and because they all have empirical backing, we should consider all three when predicting and studying how social policy might impact academic performance.
That those in lower classes live in worse housing is not seriously questioned. Indeed, the local home values seem to explain differences in school-wide achievement that other background variables do not [4]. This may be due in part to those with means opting to move into neighborhoods zoned for better schools, but is also likely the result of a more complicated relationship between homes and neighborhoods and various behaviors and actions. For example, it has been theorized that perception of disorder in one’s surroundings leads to other negative behaviors [5, 6]. Hastings [7] posits that neighborhood effects are compounded by a vicious cycle wherein poorer neighborhoods need more services and the situation is exacerbated when government officials fail to recognize, and subsequently act on, this condition.

Stress Theory
Based on developmental research, Shonkoff and Phillips [8] add stress theory as a fourth group of neighborhood effects theories, though it is more often cited by health researchers. Stress Theory posits that stressors more common in poorer neighborhoods (which might range from crime to lead paint) have deleterious effects on children. These negative effects add up to create stress and inhibit development. A recent advance in the study of stress was the creation of the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) survey [9], which measures accumulated stress through exposure to various stressors in childhood and strongly predicts later health and academic outcomes. Stress theory would predict that children exposed to more negative experiences would be more distracted, less focused, more stressed, and lower achieving in school.

Ecological Systems Theory
Widely used by those who research both neighborhoods and family/home conditions and their effect on child development, ecological systems theory [10] and the bioecological model [11] theorize that children are affected by people and institutions in five different nested levels: immediate friends, family and surroundings (the microsystem); the relationships between these immediate surroundings (the mesosystem); the outside experiences of immediate friends and family (the exosystem); the cultural context in which one lives (the macrosystem); and the historical context in which one lives (the chronosystem). Each system influences each child differently and to different extents depending on both the degree of exposure to, and context of, each.
Students who experience problems in their immediate surroundings (e.g. family conflict), relationships between these different groups (e.g. a poor relationship between their church and parents), extended social systems (e.g. a parent working in a stressful job), cultural context (e.g. high rates of poverty and unemployment), and/or historical context (e.g. racial discrimination) would be expected to perform worse in school.

Resources
Resources likely matter both directly and indirectly. In the most direct sense, more money enables families to purchase more goods to aid their children’s learning. For example, a recent study using two national databases found that families who earn more money or begin earning more money spend more on physical items like books and toys in addition to enrichment activities like sports and art classes [12].
More indirectly, economists and psychologists argue that a lack of resources diverts attention away from other tasks. For example, focusing attention on finding adequate food or water decreases the amount of attention a parent can focus on their child’s physical health or the homework due the next day [13].
The former predicts that a child with more stimulation at home and more activities outside the home will perform better in school because he/she had more learning experiences; the latter predicts that a child whose parents have to spend less time and energy ensuring basic needs are met will perform better in school because he/she received more attention and care.

Non-Cognitive Factors
Recent writings have focused the attention of researchers [14] and the public [15] on the non-cognitive skills of students, with some evidence that they may be stronger predictors of school success than cognitive skills [see, for example: 16].
Some researchers group self-control together with attention as psychological effects of poverty [17] since the stresses encountered by those living in poverty can deplete both over time [18], but I instead include self-control with non-cognitive factors.
Tough lists grit, self-control, zest, social intelligence, gratitude, optimism, and curiosity as the seven factors “especially likely to predict life satisfaction and high achievement” (p. 76). Students whose environments foster development of these skills and traits would be more likely to earn higher grades, score higher on tests, and graduate from high school and college.

Culture of Poverty
Popularized by Oscar Lewis [19] and “The Moynihan Report” [20], the “culture of poverty” theory essentially argued that people living in poverty had developed a destructive culture that perpetuated the cycle of poverty. Lewis later clarified [21] that he believed that:

The people in the culture of poverty have a strong feeling of marginality, of helplessness, of dependency, of not belonging. They are like aliens in their own country, convinced that the existing institutions do not serve their interests and needs. Along with this feeling of powerlessness is a widespread feeling of inferiority, of personal unworthiness . . . People with a culture of poverty have very little sense of history. They are a marginal people who know only their own troubles, their own local conditions, their own neighborhood, their own way of life. Usually, they have neither the knowledge, the vision nor the ideology to see the similarities between their problems and those of others like themselves else in the world (p. 21).

Lewis continues on to argue that although he believes those living in poverty had changed their culture, that these changes were not all negative. He argues, for example, that a focus on the more immediate present rather than long-term planning could lead to a more joyful and carefree life.

Though largely discredited and ignored in recent decades [22], the “culture of poverty” hypothesis has made a recent comeback among scholars [23] – but this time with a different meaning. Rather than focusing on the shortcomings of those living in poverty, the focus has shifted to examining how living in poverty affects the culture of families and neighborhoods. In this sense, Lewis may have been right that those living in poverty often feel outcast, isolated, and hopeless – but scholars now see these as an outcome rather than cause of poverty. Scholars investigating the relationship between culture and poverty would expect students who are more isolated, feel less hope for the future, and engage in less long-run planning to perform worse in school.

Conclusion
The theories discussed above all influence the research that I'll discuss in future posts and make appearances in a wide range of articles and topics. Indeed, researchers from different fields and disciplines often cite different theories in order to support similar arguments. Collectively, they predict that children with more stress, fewer resources, strained relationships, more chaotic surroundings, and worse role models will earn lower grades, perform worse on tests, drop out more frequently, and earn fewer degrees. The next posts will explore some more specific and tangible ways in which students living in poverty experience these types of factors and conditions and how those experiences subsequently affect academic performance.

Jencks, C. and S.E. Mayer, The Social Consequences of Growing Up in a Poor Neighborhood, in Inner-City Poverty in the United States, Committee on National Urban Policy and National Research Council, Editors. 1990, National Academies Press: Washington, DC.

Monday, March 10, 2014

Today marks the start of a new multi-part series on poverty and academic performance. I expect to post two or three new parts most weeks in the coming months (there will be at least 20 parts). As I explained last week, the goal of the series is to start to figure out exactly what it is about living in poverty that so dramatically affects students' achievement and attainment and to explore possible policy interventions that could mitigate poverty's impacts.

Background

Almost twenty years ago, researchers first focused on a large (as much as one standard deviation) gap between Black and White students, which they termed the "Black-White Test Score Gap" (Jencks and Phillips, 1998). The consensus term soon became “achievement gap” (Meyers, 2012), which has been used more widely to refer to both the gaps in achievement and attainment between different races and ethnicities and between those of different classes or socioeconomic backgrounds (Murphy, 2009). This series will focus on the gaps between different classes. I'll also explore "academic performance" broadly defined rather than just test scores.

Academic performance differs widely between students of different social classes across a long list of indicators, including (but not limited to): standardized test scores, grades, graduation rates, college entrance exams, college matriculation, college graduation, and completion of a graduate degree (Meyers, 2009).

Though I'll be focusing on the gaps between classes, it's worth nothing that while the Black-White test-score gap narrowed steadily during the 1970s and 1980s . . . but that progress has essentially stalled during the past quarter-century. Why? Potential explanations include changes in families (Berends, Lucas, and Peñaloza, 2008), the re-segregation of schools (Condron, 2009) and/or a myriad of other factors (Covay, 2010). Neal (2005) argues that we do not really know why progress stalled, but notes that most of the narrowing during the previous two decades occurred because of gains by Blacks in the middle and at the top of the distribution while those at the bottom largely remained at the same level. The timing of the halt in progress corresponds roughly with both the reversal of the desegregation movement over the past 40 years (Berends and Penaloza, 2010; Vigdor and Ludwig, 2008) and with widening economic inequality between both Blacks and Whites and rich and poor (Magnuson and Waldfogel, 2008; Mayer, 2001).

Given the recent growth in wealth and income inequality, perhaps it should not surprise us that recent evidence indicates that socioeconomic gaps have actually widened during that time. Reardon (2011) finds that the test-score gap between students from high- and low-income families (90th vs. 10th percentile) has grown by 30-40% over the past 25 years and is now approximately twice as large as the black-white achievement gap, the opposite of 50 years ago (see first image below). In a working paper, Bailey and Dynarski (2011) find that the gap in college completion between students from families in the top and bottom income quartile grew by 14 percentage points between children born in the early 1960s and around 1980 (see second image below). And another current working paper finds that the gap in educational attainment between children from high- and low-income households grew by a full half-year between the 1954 and 1987 birth cohorts (Duncan, Kalil, and Ziol-Guest, 2013 -- see third image below). The stalling out of progress on the Black-White achievement gap and growth in gaps between classes signals massive problems with our current efforts. But what else could we do?

Before we can decide what to change, we need to understand why these gaps exist in the first place. While study after study finds that family income (see, for example: Blau, 1999; Duncan, Brooks-Gunn, and Klebanov, 1994; Sirin, 2005) and wealth are significant predictors of academic achievement (see, for example: Orr, 2003; Shanks, 2007; Yeung and Conley, 2008), the causes of these differences are less clear.

What is clear, however, is that these differences in achievement are driven largely by differences outside of school. Consensus on this point has grown since the “Coleman Report” (Coleman et al., 1966) found that non-school factors are stronger predictors of the achievement of a given student than in-school factors, a finding that has been replicated countless times over the past forty plus years (see, for example: Alexander, Riordan, Fennessey, and Pallas, 1982; Hauser, 1972; Sirin, 2005). The current consensus is that home background factors predict about two-thirds of achievement and school factors predict about one-third (Rothstein, 2004). Indeed, if there is anything upon which education researchers agree it is that student achievement is influenced more by non-school factors than in-school factors – and the evidence is overwhelming.

The relative importance of non-school factors can be seen early on; when students begin school, a large gap in achievement already exists (Lee and Burkam, 2002). Racial gaps are non-existent in infants, but observable in toddlers (Fryer and Levitt, 2013), so the causes are almost certainly environmental rather than genetic.

Not only is the achievement gap present when students begin school, it grows during summer breaks (Borman and Benson, 2010; Downey, von Hippel, and Broh, 2004; Entwisle and Alexander, 1992; Heyns, 1978). The growing gap between high- and low-SES kids during summer months eventually results in high schoolers who are more likely to be assigned to different tracks despite similar ability earlier in life and decreases the odds of low-SES students both graduating from high school and enrolling in four-year colleges (Alexander, Entwisle, and Olson, 2007).

Given that the gap forms before school and widens during breaks from school, our best estimate is that about three-quarters of the gap is formed outside of school and about one-quarter is formed while students are in school (Murphy, 2009). This makes sense when we consider that kids spend only about 14-15% of their waking hours actually inside of schools from birth through high school*.

Next Steps

If we know that achievement gaps form before school and widen during summers, the next thing we need to know is how students' lives differ during these times. And which of these differences affect academic performance?

In the next parts, I'll explore why differences in housing and neighborhoods, health and health care, and family and home environment exist, assess the evidence that they affect academic performance, review the theory as to why they would affect academic performance, and discuss the potential of policy to address the problem.

-Really interesting move by TFA to pilot two programs in which corps members are trained for a year prior to graduation and, separately, supported during years 3-5 of teaching. I'm not surprised by the move to support current corps members for longer, since they've always been touchy about the attrition rate, but I'm very surprised by the move to train future corps members for longer. It will be interesting to see whether the additional training improves performance, but perhaps more interesting to see if it improves retention. I could see it going either way -- teachers feeling like they need to serve longer because they put forth more effort up front to gain the position, or teachers feeling more burnt out after two years (which would now be three) because they've put in more time and effort at that point.

-I doubt we'll ever stop debating the merits of pre-school, and here's some pushback against Russ Whitehurst's recent skeptical review of the evidence. I don't think there's any question that the evidence here is mixed, but what I find compelling is that more than a couple studies have found large effects decades past the intervention. The vast majority of interventions in education yield small effects that fade out quickly, so even if it's only a few of the very best pre-school programs that are having these effects it seems worth trying again.

-Starting Monday, I'll be running a multi-part series on how poverty impacts academic performance. I'm looking forward to some great dialogue around the series . . .

But I notice one thing in common among these pieces -- nobody actually seems to know exactly why living in poverty would or wouldn't lead to a change in achievement or attainment. In other words, what is it about living in poverty that drives students' poor performance in schools?

We know students from wealthier families far outperform students from lower-income families in schools, but there's no consensus among researchers and very little knowledge among the general public as to why that's the case. Heck, significant numbers of people still seem to think the relationship isn't even causal.

So, next Monday I'm going to begin a series that draws on my dissertation research to start to answer that question. Expect 2-3 posts per week over the course of the spring as I explore 19 different ways in which living in poverty negatively impacts students' performance in school and what we can do about this.

Friday, February 28, 2014

-A new CPRE report find that most "teachers focused on what students do (procedural) rather than what they understand (conceptual)" (p. 27). If I were to criticize teachers, my one criticism would be that they tend to focus more on what's happening at a given moment and how it's happening than the big picture. And that has little to do with any personal quality of the individual teacher, it's just a fact of life when one tries to manage 20-30 kids at the same time -- if procedures aren't followed, chaos ensues. Every time somebody came into my classroom, they were checking to see what procedures I was using and whether kids were following them and not whether kids were deeply understanding the material I as presenting. I think one could argue that math instruction with following rules rather than teaching understanding, which is the position of these two math teachers when asked "what's wrong with math education in the U.S.?"

-AERA, the largest educational research group, has started a new website, called "Trending Research Topic," that includes free links to journal articles relevant to current debates. The first topic posted is the common core (hat tip: EdWeek's Inside School Research blog). I'm not sure where they'll go from here, but it's a fantastic idea with a lot of potential.

-A new report on "integrated student supports" finds that schools utilizing wraparound services had some limited positive impacts on students across seven evaluations. Expect to hear much more from researchers on this topic in coming years.

-Here's a pretty impressive poem by an 8th grader that's worth 90 seconds of your time (you'll see why when you reach the bottom). And here's the transcribed text if you can't read the image. I'd add that this poem posted by another twitter user from 10 years prior is quite similar and, in some ways, better . . . but let's hope this kid didn't see that until now.

Bell has been deemed a “model teacher” even though this is her first year in the classroom and instead of studying four years to be an educator, she went through TFA’s seven-week crash course.
“Yeah, isn’t that interesting,” she says. “I’m not saying teaching is easy. Teaching is a craft. And I’m only going to get better every day at it.”
But Bell says she was “more-than prepared” and encountered “no surprises.”

Coming next week is the start of a multi-part series on the ways in which urban poverty affects academic performance. I'm excited for this, so I hope you're ready . . .

Thursday, February 27, 2014

I haven't written much the past couple years, so I'd like to write a bit about the biggest change I've seen in the education debate during that time.

I wrote last week about the two camps in education reform. It's an imperfect division, but I think it's fair to split education reform into one camp that supports more markets, measurement, and metrics versus another camp that opposes most of these reforms.

What I've noticed over the past decade, and particularly in the past couple years, is that the two groups -- let's call them the MMMs and the Yucks -- have switched roles rhetorically.

Many readers of this blog doubtless assumed that I opposed everything for which the MMMs stood and that I was a dyed-in-the-wool Yuck. But that was never really true. What I oppose is people who are really certain that something will work regardless of the evidence; people who are really just wildly advocating solutions in search of a problem. And in those years, the MMMs did that consistently.

From my vantage point, the posts and press I read advocating for the MMM solutions were frequently frantic, caustic, and accusatory. You don't support charter schools? You are a BAD PERSON! (A slight exaggeration, but you get the point). I found this style of argument more distasteful than the actual solutions being proposed.

The Yucks, on the other hand, tended to be more measured in their writing. They knew the evidence was mostly on their side since charters, vouchers, merit pay, testing, and so forth hadn't really produced many measurable results at that point. They preached patience and caution and pointed out flaws in overly zealous arguments. Or at least that's how it seemed to me.

I often find myself more frustrated now by the pieces written by the Yucks than the MMMs for the same reasons I listed above. The MMMs seem more calm and reasoned while the Yucks seem more frantic and aggressive.

I could list a thousand examples, but I'll spare you all the details in this post. Many exceptions obviously exist, but I've generally been dismayed by the rhetoric of those advocating against testing, the common core, school closures, and the like in recent years.

Since most of the same people are on the same sides (other than Diane Ravitch, of course), it seems almost impossible that the debate could really have changed that much. But I think there's one very good reason why it would: the MMMs are now winning.

A decade ago, most of their ideas were outside the mainstream (other than NCLB) and they were advocating for radical reform while the Yucks were telling them to be reasonable. Now, the majority of Americans (and even the NY Times editorial board) support a lot of the MMM ideas and the Yucks are on the defensive. It seems only natural that the side with momentum and power can be more patient while the side that finds itself on the outside looking in feels the need to frantically scream for attention.

The problem with this strategy is that the Yucks are only making it worse for themselves. Here's one of the responses to my last post on the two camps:

Based on what I've written above, I can understand why Jason feels this way. The Yucks are so busy frantically screaming that the MMMs are wrong that it's hard to hear the Yucks who are trying to advance different ideas.

I do think it's important to point out, though, that what Jason said is demonstrably false: thousands of Yucks are working on major new initiatives and ideas (Promise Neighborhoods being the prominent example). But, in some ways, that doesn't matter. Perception is reality. And it's perfectly understandable that one would perceive the MMMs as the reasonable adults and the Yucks as the crying babies in the room at the moment.

Granted, it's also understandable that the Yucks would be crying foul. Most empires topple due to overreach and hubris, and this outcome seems perfectly plausible here. The current outrage against the Common Core might signal the beginning of another transition in power.

While the Common Core is backed by solid research and makes tons of sense on paper, it's been rammed down teachers' and parents' throats in some places -- so we shouldn't be surprised by the gagging we're seeing from those groups. Indeed, in a recent survey, teachers cite constantly changing demands as the most significant challenge they face as a teacher by a large margin and almost none thought their voices were being heard on a state or national level. So even if they're objectively wrong about the Common Core, their frustration is understandable.

When each group has been in power, they have been openly hostile toward and dismissive of the other group's proposals. And when each group has been in the minority they've screamed bloody murder about every little thing. And I don't think we'll ever get anywhere as long as this continues.

So, for now, my advice to the MMMs is to stop treating everybody who disagrees with you as an obstacle to your inevitable success. And my advice to the Yucks is to stop yowling about everything the MMMs have done or are thinking of doing. Very little of what's happening today is likely to signal the end of the world.

Monday, February 24, 2014

A new survey by the UFT finds pretty big discrepancies between the perception of training by NYC Teaching Fellows versus traditionally trained teachers.

Just 5 percent of teachers who answered the union’s survey said their training through the city’s Teaching Fellows program was “excellent,” compared to 21 percent of graduates of education schools. And while 18 percent of education school graduates called their training “poor” or “fair,” that figure was nearly 50 percent for Teaching Fellows.

As a former Teaching Fellow, I never thought the training was particularly bad. Like everything, it could have been better -- but it always seemed to me that there were dozens of much larger issues. So, I wonder how much of this is driven by the fact that Teaching Fellows were more extensively trained in another field before getting a crash course in education and rushing into difficult positions in troubled schools. Those people in those circumstances might feel very differently about equally good training than would an ed school graduate who'd been preparing for his/her position for years and landed a less stressful job.

Assuming the survey is representative, though, these stats really don't look good for the program. Of course, since only 81 out of over 9,000 active Teaching Fellows took part in the survey we can' be sure about this (which doesn't necessarily mean it's not representative, just that we're less confident about its representativeness than if, say, 900 teachers had taken part). The initial response of the Fellows was to point out the small sample size, but that could backfire if a larger sample size eventually responds similarly.

What I think is even more interesting, though, is the larger context of this survey for the Teaching Fellows. The article describes The New Teacher Project (TNTP), the fellows' parent organization as "a nonprofit group that also lobbies on teacher quality issues including in favor of evaluations that consider student test scores" (emphasis added) . . . which I think says a lot.

I first wrote about this almost five years ago, but TNTP and TFA seem to keep branching out into areas well beyond filling openings in troubled schools. TFA has started getting a lot of push-back, and I think that's due more to their policy positions, lobbying, support of school board candidates, etc. than it is their actual day-to-day operations. If this survey is any indicator, TNTP may soon find itself in a similar position.

In other words, while I'm sure many are concerned about the actual recruitment and training of teachers, I'd wager that fewer people would be as concerned if TNTP weren't also lobbying for all sorts of unpopular changes.

On the one hand, I blame TNTP for branching out too far. If they'd just focus on recruiting and training teachers, they could do their job a lot better and with less risk of interference. On the other hand, it would be a shame if TNTP's work mattered less than its lobbying when reviewing its performance.

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About Me

After trying to teach middle school in the Bronx for two years, I decided to switch to the policy world and ran off to Vanderbilt to pursue a PhD. I'm now Assistant Professor at the University at Buffalo (SUNY-Buffalo) in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy, where I coordinate the M.A. program in Economics and Education Policy Analysis. While my research interests center on urban poverty and social policy, I try to stay abreast of all the latest happenings in education.

What this Blog Tries to Do

This blog is aimed at anybody interested in education policy (including, but not limited to, teachers, researchers, parents, and the general public). I aim to thoughtfully, but somewhat concisely, explore each issue I come across or bring up. I aim neither to talk down to the general public nor to insult the intelligence of the experts. The purpose of this blog is not to criticize individuals; it is to stir thought. The purpose of this blog is also (usually) not to take sides or push a certain point of view but, rather, to productively contribute to the discussion surrounding each topic.